Sesko: The Latest Victim of Soccer's Relentless Conveyor Belt of Hot Takes and Memes

Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing something here.